Lady Trueshot
by redpandamonium
Summary: "I know my name is Siobhan. I know I am someone's darling but whoever they are, they are likely dead or captured. I know I was meant to run and I know I have been caught." Captured by Imperials, a head injury leaves Siobhan with no memory of who she is. As she journeys through Skyrim in search of answers, she uncovers her past and her future - but which will win out in the end?


_I never thought I would make it here. I never thought I'd be alive for any of this. I never thought I would know what I know. I never thought I would be who I am. Here I have written the story, the legend, of how I, Lady Siobhan Trueshot, discovered what it truly means to be Dragonborn, to have gone to the ends of Sovrngard and back, to prevent the end of days._

_Chapter One_

I do not know who I am. I tell them my name is Siobhan - that is what comes to mind. I awaken, head pounding, hands bound, on a caravan taking myself and other prisoners into what I'm told is Fort Helgen. The man across from myself, Ralof of Riverwood, is a captured "Stormcloak" rebel. Stormcloaks? Rebellion? The concepts sound familiar and foreign all at once. He is fair-haired and ragged, hands bound like my own, but seems kind enough. He asks how I feel, saying he was worried I wasn't going to wake up in the first place. I'm sure he had reason to wonder - my head throbs and I can feel a cool, tacky stream of drying blood on my cheek.

I struggle to remember anything from before, but I try, desperately. Only a few words come to mind, swimming to the surface of a blank, dark pool.

"_Run. They're coming for you, darling. Leave. I'll fend them off_."

A searing feeling crosses my chest and my mind goes blank and I still know very little. I know my name is Siobhan. I know I am someone's darling but whoever they are, they are likely dead or captured. I know I was meant to run and I know I have been caught.

So involved in my thoughts, I barely register the anger of the second man in the carriage. His name is Lokir of Rorikstead, a common horse thief whose criminal attempt was foiled by the ambush of Imperials on the Stormcloak rebels. Ralof names the final man in the carriage, seated next to me, stormy eyed and silent with a gag in his mouth - Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm, Leader of the Stormcloak Rebellion, in Imperial hands. I fight to remember what this all means but find nothing, feel nothing.

As we enter the camp, Ralof asks Lokir where he is from, stating, "A Nord's last thoughts should be of home."

Where is my home? Was I trying to get back to it? Was I running from it or to it?

The carriage halts and we are hustled out of our seats. A man named Hadvar reads from the list of names of prisoners but cannot find me on it. He mentions that at least I will die in my homeland, Skyrim, a Nord among Nords, but I do not recognize this land at all… I feel a tight searing pain through my chest yet again. Panic, perhaps. Lokir succumbs to his own as they call his name, taking off, hands bound, only to be met with an Imperial arrow in his back. The fool...

They will execute us. I understand this fully as I approach the chopping block. They allow a priestess to give a blessing but she is interrupted by a fiery haired Stormcloak rebel who steps straight up to the block, impatient for death.

"As fearless in death as he was in life," murmurs Ralof beside me. He is stone-faced and solemn.

For whatever reason, I am chosen next. The Nord in the rags, they call me. I do not even know for what crime I am responsible. Fear seeps through me like a creeping acrid slime. I try to breathe as I lay my neck across the blood-strewn wooden block. Breathe. Deep.

As my last breath flows from me I go numb. I look towards my executioner, the sounds around me completely gone. I exist only in this vacuum between me and this man who is to be my killer. I close my eyes. And the vacuum is perforated by a piercing screech. My eyes shoot open, the numbness dissipates, and my eyes lock with a giant, scaly lizard - a dragon, black as night, pointed limbs and fearsome, breathing fire and chaos down upon Helgen. I am hit with an overwhelming sensation. Dizzy, sick and unsteady and I wonder if my head has been separated from my body, if this is what death would be. Then Ralof pulls me to my feet and drags me off to a stone tower for protection. I am not dead. I am alive, running from the enormous black beast bearing down upon us all.

Ralof is equally astonished. Weren't they only legends? How could they be true? Ulfric is there with us and has no helpful reply.

We flee to the stairwell of the tower but are stopped when the dragon's rage bursts a hole in the side. Ralof shouts at me to jump through to the inn on the other side and I leap, blindly, through smoke and debris, rolling onto the wooden floor of the inn I'd seen fully standing only minutes before. I scamper to the opposite end and down a hole through to ground level. The dragon is nearby, perched on a house engulfed in flames. Ralof was meant to meet me on the other side but I find myself beside Hadvar instead, that Imperial who could not find my name on the list. He is helping some of the civilians get to safety just as another blast of fire scorches the air around us.

"Still alive prisoner?" Hadvar cries, ducking beside me.

I find myself unable to answer.

I follow him along the wall just as the dragon lands mere feet from us and lets out another enormous wave of fire. Screams and smoke fill the air in tandem, sulphuric dust burning my airways as we dash to safety. Civilians and soldiers alike are collapsed on the ground in pools of blood, trembling, twitching, or still with death. I try not to see them but it feels as though they are burned into my eyes with the fire of that dragon.

Ralof emerges from the smoke. Hadvar calls him a traitor but I follow Ralof's encouragement to follow him into the keep - of course, I'd rather follow the man who did not allow rank and status to send me to the chopping block. Everything goes oddly quiet when we enter that stone fortress - a damp, musty place. We find the dead body of one of Ralof's compatriots - Gunjar, he tells me. Ralof loosens my binds and suggests I make off with Gunjar's gear as he would not be needing it anymore - an ax, a cuirass, some fur boots. I changed quickly out of my rags and grip the ax firmly. It feels heavy and unnatural in my hands. The cuirass is wearable but is loose in areas it should really be protecting, the shoes too worn and roomy.

There is only way out of that first room - through a locked gate. As Ralof and I try to find another way, we hear the voices of two Imperial guards. I have the war ax in hand and within moments, before I realize what had taken place, I had taken two, three swings at the Imperial captain and then suddenly there this stranger lies, bloody and bludgeoned at my feet. I can feel my heart racing, pumping, and I realize that my hands are shaking. Has the terror from above turned me into this? Or did I act on instincts from my life before, before I lost myself…?

We pass through the dark and dank tunnels, first to the kitchen where together we down two more Imperial soldiers and I relieve the room of it's various potions, meats, and spices, knowing quite well I will have absolutely no resources once, if, we get out of here. I abandon the ax and take instead a steel dagger from the body of one of those guards. We pass onwards to a torture room. Two Stormcloak rebels are lying dead on the stone floors inside, only moments ago sliced open by the torturer and his assistant. As Ralof examines their bodies, I collect the gold lying about the room - no doubt confiscated from the torture subjects before their untimely demise.

The room is full of skeletons and I feel a pull from within me to scrape some bone meal from them. A fractured sentence rings in my mind, "..._scrape the bones…resist the flames….careful now, easy does it_." A woman's voice, soothing, a teacher. Who was she? There are three books lying around this room and I gather them in a satchel I've found, hoping to read them eventually - hoping for an understanding of this world I am in.

As we travel the following tunnel we are thrown back by a sudden cave-in, blocking any possibility of retreat. I find myself praying there will actually be an exit through here. We hear heated whispers as we round the next bend. I grip my dagger, my fingers more sure of this small, light weapon than that unwieldy ax. The soldiers turn to us with bow and arrow and I duck, much more swiftly than I expect myself capable, and as if I was dancing, I whirl around and stab him in one gliding movement. He falls quickly as Ralof downs a second, third, and fourth. Instinct pulls at me again and I retrieve the long bow from the dead man in front of me, grabbing his quiver of arrows and supplementing it with those of the other dead.

We follow an underground river over slippery stones and mossy embankments, straight to a cavern full of spiders. I aim my bow, my fingers finding their place almost immediately on its smooth curves and I release my volley of arrows - one, two, three - and watch the enormous arachnids fall instantly as the iron tips pierce their hairy shells. Ralof gives me a moment as I feel compelled again to gather a few handfuls of spider eggs from the sticky, flossy webs. That woman's voice shimmers in my mind again, "_Careful not to squish them, they're very delicate and will lose their properties if not in solution… elves ear… your father's hunting bow…_"

Ralof begins to lose patience and hurries me along. I try to hold onto the woman's voice but it is like cradling water in my palms. I follow close by Ralof but am stopped abruptly by his harsh whisper. "Hold up! There's a cave bear… I'd rather not tangle with her right now… let's try and sneak around."

My first instinct is to listen to Ralof. But as I crouch, my hands instinctively retrieve my newly acquired bow. As smoothly as with the spiders, my arrow pierces through the thick fur of the bear and with hardly a sound, her sleeping body slumps and she fails to rise.

"Not the sneaky type, eh?" Ralof mutters, chuckling quietly to himself. "Come on, I think I see the exit."

Light. As we enter the snowy, frost-filled air of Skyrim, we hear the last rasping call of that giant black dragon as it flies away towards the mountains. Gone for good, I can only hope.

"You should head to Riverwood," Ralof offers. "My sister, Gerdur, runs the mill there. She can help you find shelter and supplies."

I don't reply at first. Part of me wants to stay nearby, as if my identity could somehow be found in the burnt ruins of Helgen. But I need a place to stay. I clutch my bow, and set a hand gently on the pack I had swiped. Ralof, impatient for a response, marches down the path. I won't remember who I am by staying here. And until I remember who I am, I won't know where to go - Riverwood is as good a place as any.

"I'll come with you," I say quietly, surprised at the sound of my own voice as I hurry after him. I realize I have not spoken a single word other than my name this entire morning. He stops, turns to me and smiles.


End file.
